Corporal Shard watched the dirt flying out, caught by the whipping wind in wild swirls, for a moment longer. Twenty paces beyond the deep hole and Crump’s flashing shovel squatted the low-walled stone enclosure where the squad had stashed their gear, and where now crouched Sergeant Cord, Masan Gilani, Limp and Ebron, taking shelter from the blustery wind. In a short while, Cord would call everyone to their feet, and the patrol of this part of die coast would begin.
In the meantime, Crump was digging a pit. A deep pit, just like the sergeant ordered. Just like the sergeant had been ordering every day for nearly a week now.
Shard rubbed at his numbed face, sick with worry over his sister. The Sinn he knew was gone and no sign of her remained. She’d found her power, creating something avid, almost lurid, in her dark eyes. He was frightened of her and he was not alone in that. Limp’s bad knees knocked together whenever she came too close, and Ebron made what he thought were subtle, unseen gestures of warding behind her back. Masan Gilani seemed unaffected-that at least was something, maybe a woman thing at that, since Faradan Sort had been pretty much the same.
That simple? Terrifying to men but not women? But why would that be the case?
He had no answer for that.
Crump’s humming was getting louder, drawing Shard’s attention once again. Loud enough to very nearly overwhelm the distant groans of dying ice from the other side of the strait. Worth yelling at the fool again? Maybe not.
Dirt flying out, skirling skyward then racing out on the wave of the gelid wind.
There were holes dotted along half a league of this island’s north coast. Crump was proud of his achievement, and would go on being proud, probably for ever. Finest holes ever dug. Ten, fifty, a hundred, however many the sergeant wanted, yes sir.
Shard believed that Cord’s fervent hope that one such pit would collapse, burying the damned idiot once and for all, was little more than wishful thinking.
After all, Crump digs great holes.
He heard a piping shriek from some way behind him and turned. And there she was. Sinn, the girl he used to throw onto a shoulder like a sack of tubers-a giggling sack-and rush with through room after room as her laughter turned to squeals and her legs started kicking. Straggly black hair whipping about, a bone flute in her hands, its music flung out into the bitter tumult like inky strands, as she cavorted in the face of the weather as if spider-bitten.
Sinn, the child witch. The High Mage with a thirst for blood.
Child of the rebellion. Stolen from the life she should have lived, fashioned by horror into something new. Child of Seven Cities, of the Apocalyptic, oh yes. Dryjhna’s blessed spawn.
He wondered how many such creatures were out there, stumbling through the ruins like starved dogs. Uprising, grand failure, then plague: how many scars could a young soul carry? Before it twisted into something unrecognizable, something barely human?
Did Sinn find salvation in sorcery? Shard held no faith that such salvation was in truth benign. A weapon for her will, and how far could a mortal go with such a weapon in their hands? How vast the weight of their will, unbound and unleashed?
They were right to fear. So very right.
A gruff command from Sergeant Cord and it was time to begin the patrol. A league’s worth of blasted, wind-torn coastline. Crump climbed out of the pit and dusted his palms, his face shining as he looked down on his handiwork.
‘Isn’t she fine, Corporal? A hole dug by a High Marshal of Mott Wood, and we know how to dig ‘em, don’t we just. Why, I think it might be the best one yet! Especially with all the baby skulls on the bottom, like cobbles they are, though they break too easy-need to step light! Step light!’
Suddenly chilled in a place far deeper than any wind could reach, Shard walked to the edge of the pit and looked down. Moments later the rest of the squad joined him.
In the gloom almost a man’s height down, the glimmer of rounded shapes. Like cobbles they are.
And they were stirring.
A hiss from Ebron and he glared across at Sinn, whose music and dancing had reached a frenzied pitch. ‘Gods below! Sergeant-’
‘Grab that shovel again,’ Cord growled to Crump. ‘Fill it in, you fool! Fill it in! Fill them all in!’
Crump blinked, then collected up his shovel and began pushing the dry soil back into the hole. ‘Best hole-fillers t’be found anywhere! You’ll see, Sergeant! Why, you won’t never see holes filled so good as them’s done by a High Marshal of Mott Wood!’
‘Hurry up, you damned fool!’
‘Yes sir, hurry up. Crump can do that!’
After a moment, the sapper began singing.